Mizuno's flagship shoe at $200. What you get in return is a Wave plate unit with multiple patents and a great upper, which also looks the part. Downsides are the weight, the pungent industrial smell from the midsole, and well, the price.

Asics Gel Rebel

It attracts a lot of attention, we must give Mizuno Wave Prophecy that. We’ve had the Prophecy for the last couple of months, and every now and then we would wear them to work. On the way up in the elevator, people would stare or at least make a furtive glance at the Mizuno. Sometimes you make conversation. On the sprint track, the coaches and runners would notice the Prophecy the first time we’d pass them by, and then try to get a closer look the next time we run past them. In an athletic shoe store, the employees would gawk at the shoe with undisguised curiosity, and most of them would end up asking, ‘Hey, nice shoes. Where did you buy them from?’ That is how radical the Mizuno Wave Prophecy looks. The heel to toe Mizuno Wave unit is the visually dominant area of the shoe, and it is topped off with a metallic red midsole, a spacer mesh upper with an alternating red-white-black color scheme, and welded overlays which goes over the upper like masterful Japanese calligraphy strokes.

The Mizuno Wave Prophecy was released in May 2011, which makes us ask, why now? Nike Shox, the Adidas A³ and Megabounce were all the rage in the last decade, but now the sun seems to have set on the ‘columnar cushioning’ empire, save for areas in South America, where we hear these kind of shoes do well. If the Wave Prophecy had been released 8 years earlier and at a tag $70 cheaper, it would been extremely successful. Now with the entire running shoe market trending towards minimalist, ‘let-your-foot-work-for-you’ shoes, it is not the probably not the best time to drop in a shoe which does exactly the opposite of what runners have to come to expect.

The answer lies in the fact that Mizuno took a decade to get the Wave Prophecy to the market. The official press release says ‘seven years in the making’, but based off our research on patent applications filed by Mizuno in Japanese and US patent offices, the story started in 2001. Which makes sense, really. Nike Shox had been released in 2000 after 16 years of research and development (Popular science Magazine, Nov 2000) and it seemed the next big thing in the running shoe game. For the first few years, it actually was. Mizuno’s wave technology debuted in 1997, and Nike’s initial success with Shox might have led Mizuno to start working on a full length wave cushioning. The first patent (A-2003-9906) for a heel only based Wave unit was filed in Japan/US in June/August 2001, unmistakably an evolutionary step towards the development of the full length Wave plate. The patent is published in a year and half, and soon after, the first Mizuno Wave creation hits the shelves. Another patent application (A-2003-339405) is filed with the Japanese patent office, this time for a full length Wave cushioning platform. And finally, in December 2005, the patent application(7484317) for the present day Mizuno Wave plate was filed with the US Patent office. If we read the details right, the patent was granted in February 2009, a good three and half years after the application was filed. But meanwhile, Mizuno started tweaking around with the Wave creation unit to bring it closer to the present day plate design. The convex cushioning structure seen in the Mizuno Wave Prophecy made its first appearance in the Wave Creation 8 in 2007. After the patent confirmation, the 2011 Wave Creation 12 featured a heel Wave plate near identical to the rear section of the Prophecy. A few months later, the Mizuno Wave Prophecy was released. Kenjiro Kita and his colleagues at Mizuno would have been very relieved – in 2001, they would not have imagined the paperwork they would have to push to get the $200 Prophecy out to the stores in a black cardboard box.

Given the running shoe industry’s recent leanings towards all things minimal, the Mizuno Wave Prophecy is most certainly an anachronism. And ironically, the name has been a poor prophet of the shoe’s commercial success. We are yet to see another runner in these, and even the store assistants at Fleet Feet (where we bought the Prophecy from) said there weren’t many people buying them. The Prophecy reminds me of the Gel Kinsei and the Adidas a1 – other shoes created with a lot of effort and little marketplace success to show for.That said, there is a silver lining to these stratospherically expensive shoes. These shoes should be looked at the same way the world looks at concept cars. Concept cars eventually don’t make it to the local car dealerships, but it is pretty much a blank cheque to the car designers on what they can do with the car. Best trims, choice of metal, advanced engine features and electronics – you get our drift. So later on, when the curtain’s down on the Tokyo motor show, bits and pieces out of these concept cars start finding their way into mass production cars. It might be that steering system. Or the lights. Contour lines. Navigation system. So our point is, these experiments might not translate into instant cash register ka-chings, but serve as an inspiration point for other products downstream. From that perspective, the Mizuno Wave Prophecy very much serves the purpose. But for now, what do we, reviewers of high priced foot coverings, think about the Wave Prophecy after wear testing them?

The shoe costs $200, which is a serious amount of cash, considering even the most expensive running shoes stop at $160-180. So our expectations of the shoe were sky high, and we tested the Prophecy over multiple 5k runs, casual walking around and stationary training exercise sessions. Let’s begin with the upper first, which really, really impressed us. The upper base is a semi-stretchy, dual layer open mesh, with a quality level which we don’t see often even in $150+ running shoes. The black, red and white of the mesh mixes together to result in a dramatic visual effect, and sinewy synthetic molded overlays and welds add an extra dimension to the aesthetic package. Use of this mesh results in an amazing fit – it keeps the foot securely in place, yet is stretchable, well ventilated and avoids constriction. Inside, two stretch bands wrap around the midfoot, enabling mild lockdown, and prevents the tongue from moving around. The collar and tongue is not plushy padded, yet wraps snugly around. There are some nice touches of detail, like the embossed ‘Wave Prophecy’ and the Mizuno logo on the fabric lining. Don’t recall when was the last time we saw that, either. Paradoxically, the snug upper is also roomy, and should be able to accommodate regular D and E widths. A molded sockliner sits inside the upper – nothing outworldly about that one, though. Just a good layer of molded open cell foam with printed graphics on the top. But like they say, everything is a sum of parts, and the Mizuno has made a shoe upper which is near perfect in fit and feel – and going back to our analogy of concept cars, there are a lot many things which can be taken downstream from the Mizuno Wave Prophecy.

Now down to the sole unit – born out of a decade long toil of innovation and patent grant bureaucracy. The Wave sole unit works on the principle of deformation; cushioning and impact absorption is achieved by four convex openings or gaps which compress (and later rebound back) when weight is applied on them. The sole unit also has an extremely high toe spring (distance from the toe tip to the ground) which results in the body being propelled forward once the weight transfers to the front of the shoe. Once the weight reaches the forefoot, the foot just ‘tips’ over in the forward direction. This results in a feeling of the shoe ‘pushing’ you ahead, though this sensation diminishes as you pick up speed. The heel area has a LOT of give or sink during heelstrike, even for a medium weight runner. That immediately resulted in stress on the shin, and after each of our test runs, we experienced mild sore shins for 10-15 minutes after the run was over. The heel sink is even more pronounced when the weight is increased; all pointing out to the fact that the Prophecy isn’t cut out for speed runs. This is a shoe for conditioning runs, and for heavier runners who are looking for something to effectively cushion their body weight.

To give credit where it is due, the Wave unit is thoughtfully designed. With the significant heel compression, we were surprised by how well the Prophecy kept its line. The shoe owes its stability to the uncovered space right under the heel, between the two rubber sole components. During the heelstrike, the weight tends to stay in the center, hence setting the foundation for a forward weight transfer. This guidance area extends right up to the midfoot, leaving exposed areas showing the hard, silver Wave layer. Small, rectangular rubber pieces connect two layers of the plate, allowing for some damping as well as forward shear (akin to Adidas Formotion). The forefoot is amazingly cushioned and flexible for a full length Wave unit, helped by a deep flex groove and the rubber connectors. Between the first plate and the upper lies a layer of midsole foam which Mizuno calls the AP+ (Advanced performance) midsole. It is painted over with a metallic red which looks great, but smells like a can of paint, literally. A very strong, noticeable smell, which reminds us of the inflated rubber toy smell in the 80’s.

The overall surface area of the outsole is reduced due to the high toe spring and grooves in the heel and the midfoot, and Mizuno has tried to compensate, with small, sharper rubber lugs. It does care of the traction on dry, debris free surface, but step into some amount of soil, and it quickly clogs up the space between the tiny lugs, reducing grip over the surface. We hope that is something Mizuno takes care of in its re-design, if the Prophecy continues to be in the future line-up.

If you’ve already had a peek at our ratings, you’d notice we’ve given the Prophecy a rather low rating of 3/5, in spite of the eloquence we waxed about its near perfect upper, the decade long struggle and the thoughtfully designed Wave unit. That is where the ‘cost vs. value’ equation comes in. The Mizuno Wave Prophecy is a running shoe; and the question is, ‘how good a running shoe it is over a $140 one?’ We found that question difficult to answer. Shoes at $130-150 perform, fit and feel as well as the Prophecy, and purely, from that point of view, we say nay to the $200 pricepoint, regardless of the number of patents the Prophecy has to show.

But like we said before – the silver lining is that we should see a trickle-down effect of the work that has gone into making the Prophecy, and that’s redemption enough.

Vlain

Darn priced like a sports car but few people will suit their purpose. Mizuno i known for its high price tag why is that?lol

solereview

We can’t say about other shoes, but the Wave Prophecy would have to be Mizuno’s most loss making shoe to date, even with the $200 pricetag. Knowing how the footwear Industry works, their costs on development, patent application would have run to at least a million dollars. A huge amount to amortize if you’re only pushing out only a few thousand pairs of the Prophecy.

Alvin Mariano

Yes i believe it did cost alot but hopefully it cant sell alot too or this shoes will be history sooner than they expect. I like the design it would be nice to see it in my shoe rack but it cost like hell lol

solereview

We just think that the time isn’t right for these full blown columnar cushioning systems – if Mizuno had got these into the market seven years ago, they would have had a fair shot at making the Prophecy successful.
Great effort, bad timing.

alvin mariano

You’re right this day and age minimalist running is booming and this kind of bulky shoes aren’t gonna cut it to many runners lol. Design is like an art but the functionality is limited.

RunnerRachi

Just called mizuno to ask what the next colour of the nirvana is… oh wait they arnt making it this is their final release… well that answers the question they are taking those out to try to increase those customers to the prophecy which i have absolutely no issue with the price tag of it when it comes to something amazing but knowing it doesnt rate well its either down grade or trade out… not so happy

solereview

The Prophecy isn’t a bad shoe. Just plain unlucky for Mizuno it took so much time for the shoe to hit the market. Seven years ago, the Mizuno Wave Prophecy would have experienced decent commercial success.

NoQ

Sorry to resurrect this thread. But now that the minimalist footwear trend has declined (and so has my injuries, and yes i have had extensive coaching on minimalist running), and the recent popularity of maximalist footwear, i decided to purchase a pair of gen 1 Prophecies for $112 with my Mizuno VIP card.

5’5″ 145lbs runner and basketball point guard, coming from new balance 1080v3 and Mizuno wave enigma. I had pf, pfps and shin splints would appear on the nb’s after 1mile. After reading this i found out a soft heel (very soft on the 1080v3) aggravates shin splints and thus i tried the prophecy despite your warning of a soft heel.

These are awesome for me. Upper is amazing, though the prophecy 2 felt more Glove like. Great transition and a firm yet highly responsive, not bouncy ride.

Unlike the reviewer though the heel for me was firm. A few miles in, i am now running everyday because i have no shin splints. Cant do that on the 1080v3 or even the enigma.

The stiff midsole also works well for me especially with the rocker tip. I find that though there is much control, i could easily bend the forefoot. Im a midfoot striker but heel striking ever so smoothly further enhanced this ride.

I just wanna say how great it is that my experience differed from the reviewers point of view, yet with all the info on this page i ended up with an informed buying decision and im loving my pair.

Oh yeah $120 is the most id pay for these. Thank u so much again great work appreciated years after this was written!

http://www.solereview.com solereview

Thanks for reading one of our old reviews!

That’s the thing with shoe reviews – variables (body weight, footstrike patterns etc) make sure that there will be a lot of different experiences even with the same shoe. So it is perfectly ok to disagree with the review, and we’re happy that you found the review useful in some way! And great to hear the Prophecy is working well for you.

NoQ

I just realized this is one of your oldest reviews! Speaks volumes how your work stood up against trends (minimalism and now maximalism), and is still relevant years later. That is just awesome writing write there keep it up im a fan of your site for life!

http://www.solereview.com solereview

Appreciate the kind words, really do.

This was an old review, but our ancient ones would be of 2008 vintage, when solereview just started off. The website was being updated off and on till April 2014, after which it became a full-time obsession.

We deleted the older, pre-2011 reviews (although some can be brought back on specific requests). The initital reviews were a little cringe-worthy, with terrible photographs, choice of shoes and other undesirables. Was akin to looking at one’s fifth grade photographs, with braces and goofy pants.

NoQ

Interesting history, no wonder your work is very excellent with 6 years experience reviewing. Haha hope you would post one of those vintage reviews, it would be a lot of fun to go throuhh them im sure.

Cheers!

http://www.solereview.com solereview

Maybe one day it’ll be good to take a walk (or read) down the memory lane, and publish some of our sub-standard reviews

NoQ

That is just great!! Most of the sites we visit for basketball related reviews (weartesters) have been reduced to fanboyish articles. I now rely on counterkicks for a more mature take but the speed of their review publishing is just too slow. Your format, scheduling, and review style will be much of a blessing to the community as more and more young dads like me are getting back to ballin’ with thin wallets i once bought a Kobe 8 due to a fanboyish review and got my pf from there.

Hope u cud look at these sites as reference and come up with a better one.

Can’t wait!! There’s a bunch of us just waiting for your site!

http://www.solereview.com solereview

Actually the fact that we realize our baller kick reviews have to be way up there (in quality) is precisely the reason we’re not rushing it.

When we do start reviewing basketball shoes, expect nothing less than perfection and unprecedented detail – multiple surface wear-testing, across players of varying weight and position, a minimum of 50 hours testing time, etc. Photographs, tear-downs, tech info will be standard.

But this is going to take some time.

NoQ

I simply can’t wait, this is the best news i’ve heard today. Finally, quality baskeball reviews like what you do with runners, that is just what we need. Will tell my friends both in the courts and online. Will be waiting!

http://www.solereview.com solereview

Thanks – but this might take a while. Solereview first needs to be profitable before we start BB reviews – right now the website is a financial sinkhole

Nick

Hi there,

I really like your reviews and as I am interested in Prophecy I would like to ask your opinion.

I am 1,86cm and 83 kgs. I have high arches and I am a mid-foot striker. This period I wear Nike Pegasus 31 but after long runs I always have blisters and pain in my feet soles.

I find Mizuno Prophecy extra protective shoes and maybe I should give the a try, but I am not sure. Could you guide me in other shoes as well? I run long distances but I am a mid-level runner.

Thank you and congratulations for your site.

http://www.solereview.com solereview

The Mizuno Wave Prophecy is now going to be in its 4th version, so many changes since we reviewed this shoe. So cannot comment on recent versions, but we’re hoping to cover Prophecy 4 sometime next time.

We highly recommend the Hoka One One Clifton if you’re looking for great cushioning.

Rob Liao

Really enjoying your site. I just bought the Wave Prophecy 4. It seems to be on a different last than the Wave Rider 18? The shoe seems slightly larger, perhaps by 1/2 size. I had some slight heel slippage, but I haven’t played around with the lacing. I was expecting a really hard ride, but it was not that hard. Firm and responsive. I really enjoyed the snappy transition, especially when I picked up the tempo.

Coming from running in maximalist shoes for the last year (Hoka Bondi Speed 2, Clifton, Altra The One2), the firm, responsive handling is refreshing. Sort of like switching from a Buick to a Porsche.

The Mizuno uppers are hard to beat, especially for folks like me who have a wide forefoot and like lots of toe splay.

http://www.solereview.com solereview

Thanks for the feedback. We’ll be reviewing the Prophecy 4 later this month or early January, so look forward to seeing how it differs from the OG version.